In many situations and environments, there is often a need to exchange data between distributed devices. For example, in pay television systems (e.g., cable and satellite broadcast systems), there is often a need for back channel communication between a television receiver, such as a set-top box, and a centralized processing server. For example, the television receiver and the centralized processor may exchange data for purposes of service fulfillment, diagnostics, and the like. Traditionally, such back channel communication has been performed over traditional fixed-line phone services, such as using modem to communicate between the television receiver and the remote processing server.
As other telephone services, such as mobile phones, cell phones, Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”), and the like, have become more ubiquitous and are replacing traditional fixed-line phones, such other telephone services have become a convenient medium for exchanging data and other information.